The present invention relates to printed wiring card positioning arrangements and, more particularly, to an arrangement for positioning a printed wiring board not relying on support of the board from below.
Printed wiring board positioning arrangements are well known to those skilled in the art. One very common type is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,216,580 issued Nov. 9, 1965, to F. V. Fricker, Jr. This patent provides a positioning device for retaining cards which includes base and upper members connected by a flexible segment. The base and upper members include card admitting grooves and are positioned such that the lower end of the upper member's groove is out of alignment with the lower member's groove. Such devices rely on both card vertical edges to position the card and the card's bottom edge to support the card.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,042 issued May 9, 1978, to R. B. Torburn, teaches an apparatus for positioning hybrid substrates in a vertical orientation including a vertically oriented flat body portion located adjacent the substrate to be positioned. The body portion is held in contact with a horizontal mounting plane by means of a first peg extending from the body portion through the horizontal plane. Protrusions extend over the upper edge of and below the lower edge of the held substrate to position the substrate relative to the mounting plane. Such an arrangement has the disadvantage of being suitable for use only with substrates mounted upon a horizontal surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,198,024 issued Apr. 15, 1980, to Cavanna, teaches a unitary retention arm for printed circuit boards engaged in card connectors attached to vertically oriented base members. The retention arm is mounted to the base and engages the printed circuit card edge opposite the connector to hold the card seated within the connector. Such an arrangement can permit lateral movement of the printed circuit board relative to the connector thus allowing contact misalignment, shorting of adjacent contacts, and opening of the contact connection to occur.